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#21
Interesting. I think there probably is a hardware issue going on here. Can you try contacting the manufacturer for any warranty or any further assistance? That might get you further.
Also, the reason why you don't have the pretty GUI boot is that when in Windows 7 and your screen resolution doesn't match up with the minimum requirements for Windows (I believe it's around CRT resolution for the pretty GUI boot), the GUI boot will default to the icky vista one. I see it a bit when installing Windows 7 on netbooks. It's a damn shame I think. I like sitting at my desk looking at the pretty Windows flag glowing three times... :)
Just for poops and giggles, does your monitor and puter have a DVI port? I kind of want to see what happens there, maybe it'll be recognized as HDMI?